INLS697 - Emerging Topics in Information ScienceUniversity of North Carolina - Chapel Hill2010-04-01T13:59:24ZWordPresshttp://ibiblio.org/pjones/ils697/wordpress/?feed=atomadminhttp://ibiblio.org/pjones/ils697/wordpress/?p=1022010-04-01T13:59:24Z2010-04-01T13:56:58ZTony Deifell who created http://www.wdydwyd.com will be visiting us. Here he talks to Google folks about teaching blind children photograpy:

“Tony Deifell taught photography to blind children. More importantly, they taught him what it means to see. He draws surprising lessons about innovation and leadership from the experience. Whether it is business strategy, customer behavior, team building or personal development, he shows us how we are each bound by the ways in which we see the world.

FastCompany.com called Tonys book SEEING BEYOND SIGHT, “savvy, passionate, witty, and yes, beautiful.” “This book will make you look—and look again—at how you perceive and what you assume, claimed Shambhala Sun. He uses the physics of light as a metaphor — DISTORTION, REFRACTION, REFLECTION, TRANSPARENCE, ILLUMINANCE — to tell pleasantly surprising stories about different ways of seeing and thinking out-of-the-box that be applied to any sector or field. You can see photos by the blind photographers at: http://www.seeingbeyondsight.org

This event took place in Mountain View on December 18, 2008 as part of the Authors@Google series.”

Please make a Why Do You Do What You Do entry before Tony’s vist on Monday at http://wdydwyd.ning.com/ and post the URL and/or the image here

]]>11adminhttp://ibiblio.org/pjones/ils697/wordpress/?p=962010-03-15T17:38:52Z2010-03-15T17:38:01Zhttp://www.ted.com At TED2009, Tim Berners-Lee called for “raw data now” — for governments, scientists and institutions to make their data openly available on the web. At TED University in 2010, he shows a few of the interesting results when the data gets linked up.
]]>0adminhttp://ibiblio.org/pjones/ils697/wordpress/?p=932010-03-14T20:04:49Z2010-03-14T00:13:10Z

]]>0adminhttp://ibiblio.org/pjones/ils697/wordpress/?p=862010-02-14T16:12:16Z2010-02-14T16:06:52ZThe CHAT festival takes place February 16 – 20. Registration for the overall festival, all activities, is $15 for UNC students, but many events including some concerts and talks are free and open to the unregistered public. You’ll want to check out the schedule to see what you can fit in and whether you need to register or not to attend. I encourage you to attend as much as you can and as much as interests you, but I realize that there is a lot going on in your lives besides CHAT and ILS 697.

In lieu of our Wednesday February 17th class, I’m asking you to attend at least one CHAT Festival session and report back to us here on this thread about your experience. Do include references to our viewings so far if they are appropriate.

CHAT will draw together the diverse digital resources of the Triangle area in a series of performances, discussions, exhibitions and workshops February 16-20, 2010, to showcase Collaborations: Humanities, Arts & Technology.

While computers and technology pervade every part of life today, today’s schools look pretty much the same as yesterday’s schools. Looking inside of schools reveals many opportunities for disruptive solutions, like computer-based learning, to take root. What inhibits these opportunities? What enables them?

]]>12adminhttp://ibiblio.org/pjones/ils697/wordpress/?p=472010-01-04T21:40:59Z2010-01-04T21:40:59ZGary Small visits Google’s Kirkland, WA office to discuss his book “iBrain: Surviving the Technological Alteration of the Modern Mind.” This event took place on October 21, 2008, as part of the Authors@Google series.

Gary Small, M.D., one of America’s leading neuroscientists, Director of the
UCLA Memory and Aging Research Center, as well as one of the leading medical
experts on memory and brain fitness, delivers *iBrain: Surviving the
Technological Alteration of the Modern Mind,* the book we will all be
referring to for the next twenty years. Never before has one generation
experienced such rapid change in the brain’s underlying wiring system, and
the full consequences of this evolution has yet to be fully explored until
now.

In a world made up of digital natives and digital immigrants, where our
grandparents don’t know what it is to “Google,” while we obsessively
text-message business contacts when out to dinner, and our children do their
homework while surfing the net, updating their MySpaces, chat on their
cells, and stare at their Play Stations –whether we’re technologically
challenged or high-tech overachievers — something’s got to give.

]]>12adminhttp://ibiblio.org/pjones/ils697/wordpress/?p=452010-01-04T21:35:51Z2010-01-04T21:35:51ZRobin Dunbar speaks on social brain theory and on what it is to be human and how it is that we came to be that way, the essence of the ongoing research in the Lucy to Language project. Or, as he puts it: How it is that humans arent just great apes. Robin I. M. Dunbar is Professor, Evolutionary Anthropology; Director, Institute of Cognitive & Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Oxford, United Kingdom; Co-Director of the British Academys Centenary Research Project, Lucy to Language: The Archaeology of the Social Brain, a multidisciplinary project involving several universities, studying how the human brain evolved and the role language played.
]]>11adminhttp://ibiblio.org/pjones/ils697/wordpress/?p=432010-01-04T21:31:53Z2010-01-04T21:31:53ZSensing the motives and feelings of others is a natural talent for humans. But how do we do it? Here, Rebecca Saxe shares fascinating lab work that uncovers how the brain thinks about other peoples’ thoughts — and judges their actions.

Rebecca Saxe studies how we think about other people’s thoughts. At the Saxelab at MIT, she uses fMRI to identify what happens in our brains when we consider the motives, passions and beliefs

]]>7adminhttp://ibiblio.org/pjones/ils697/wordpress/?p=412010-01-04T21:28:37Z2010-01-04T21:28:37ZA counterpoint to Dunbar and to Small? Or just another way of looking at your brain? (pj)

Alva Noe visits Google’s San Francisco, CA office to discuss his book “Out of Our Heads: Why You Are Not Your Brain, and Other Lessons from the Biology of Consciousness.” This event took place on April 16, 2009, as part of the Authors@Google series.

The notion that consciousness is confined to the brain, like software in a computer, has dominated science and philosophy for close to two centuries. Yet, according to this incisive review of contemporary neuroscience from Berkeley philosopher Nöe, the analogy is deeply flawed. In eight illuminating, mercifully jargon-free chapters, he defines what scientists really know about consciousness and makes a strong case that mind and awareness are processes that arise during a dynamic dance with the observers surroundings. Nöe begins with a sharp critique of scientists, such as DNA co-discoverer Francis Crick, who insist that nothing but neurons determines our daily perceptions and sense of self. He then examines studies of human and animal behavior that demonstrate an inextricable link between identity and environment. Nöe regrettably limits his treatise by ignoring considerable research from transpersonal psychology suggesting that consciousness transcends physicality altogether. Still, the resulting book is an invaluable contribution to cognitive science and the branch of self-reflective philosophy extending back to Descartes famous maxim, I think, therefore I am.

]]>7adminhttp://ibiblio.org/pjones/ils697/wordpress/?p=392010-01-04T21:20:39Z2010-01-04T21:20:39ZOn June 19 2008, danah boyd participated in the Berkman Luncheon Series to discuss her work and research in the area of social networks. She provided a great historical context to the various sites that have come and gone from the center of Internet activity, as well as some insight into what brought about their successes and failures.

Prior to her presentation she explained, “Publics offer youth a space to engage in cultural identity development. By engaging in public life, youth learn to interpret the cultural signals that surround them and incorporate these cultural elements into their life. For a diverse array of reasons, contemporary youth have limited access to the types of publics with which most adults grew up. As a substitute for these inaccessible publics, networked publics like MySpace and Facebook are emerging to provide contemporary American youth with a necessary site for peer engagement.”